(for context on what this series is, please see my Day 1 post here: Redundancy Review: Day 1, “A New Beginning” – Rosalia’s Rambles)
Good morning collies and sheep, welcome to a megapost covering several days of VExpo for the Redundancy Review.
My arse is now firmly planted back down on my sofa which means one thing only: I have returned from my convention trip at VExpo, and in short…
Holy shit I had the best time of my life I want to do this again and interact with way more people it felt so fucking good to actually leave my hole to talk to others in this setting again.
So yeah, I had a great time, and I want to write a full recap of everything I got up to because there were memorable experiences, amazing artists & cosplayers, and unsurprisingly for a convention all about VTubers, a fair amount of scuff when it came to organisation.
Little bit of expectation setting to help contextualise my review, recap, and thoughts before we get into it:
- This is my first convention in six years, so I am a little unfamiliar with how the circuit works nowadays
- This is my first in-person VTuber event ever, so whilst I read a lot about other cons online, my IRL perspective is entirely fresh
- I am one socially awkward fucker, so when it came to taking pictures with people I might have forgotten to ask their name/handle… or even tell them mine in some instances. I am adding tags when I can but no guarantees
- I did not eat entirely right during the duration of this trip, which definitely made my experience worse in some regards but is entirely my fault
Time to start, let us leave no stone unturned as we head straight into:
Thursday, which was Day -1, I guess
My convention weekend started on the Thursday, with me working briefly in the morning before heading on to the train with my partner to head over to the NEC. Fun tidbit, my partner has never actually been to the whole NEC complex before while I am quite familiar from previous convention trips, so it was quite cute seeing him be in awe of the scale of the place.
Once I had whipped him around the centre, we went to our hotel which was conveniently located a stone’s throw away from the piazza entrance: Moxy.
I had booked this all the way back in February, knowing that VExpo was going to be my one big trip this year and I wanted a hotel close to the convention grounds, with Moxy definitely fulfilling the criteria. It was definitely a little on the pricey side for four nights, the rate being about £116 a night for the Thursday/Friday and about £140 a night for the Saturday/Sunday, coming to a total of £617.08 for the entire stay.
The most expensive part of the weekend as a whole, but considering how much my partner and I ended up going to/from the hotel over the weekend, having that as convenience was more than worth the price.
Plus as the photo dump is going to show, we had a great view of Pendigo Lake from our window.
After taking some time to rest and unpack our stuff, we went over to Resorts World, as I had only been once and my partner had never been. As we entered we were both taken aback by the scale of things, going up to the first floor where we noticed a guy from a distance wearing a Ceres Fauna bag.
I was a bit nervous to approach, but that is why I have my partner as the extrovert who adopted me, so he went up to initiate the conversation. Started talking about the merch he had on and it was only after he showed the Gigi Murin plush in the bag that things started to click in my brain.
“Wait a minute… you’re Aaron from HUKEC right?” (HUKEC stands for “Hololive UK Enthusiasts Community”, I am going to be using this acronym a lot)
It was, and we shared an amazing sort of manly handshake. The con had not even started properly, and I had already met someone new that I was familiar with. Thank you Aaron (@musclesap on Twitter) and your friend Alex for being the first conversation we had and for being the first of many to listen to my cosplay horror story.
Parting ways with those awesome people, we continued to wander around Resorts World, coming across the Hollywood Bowl arcade where we could have spent an inordinate amount of time and money, especially given the fact there was a Halo: Fireteam Raven arcade booth.
I played one quick round with a stray pound coin I found in a change giver that had seemingly been abandoned and got a decent distance, but considering some of the other booths here, this is definitely a place I want to return to.
When it came to food, I had one place fixated on my mind. A place I had not been to in over a year and one I regard as an old friend, even if the quality is not that great: Five Guys.
Are there way better options for burgers in this world? Yes
Were there way better options for burgers within Resorts World itself? Definitely
But something hits different about the foil wrapped delights of a Five Guys, plus I am extremely glad to see that they are still using fresh jalapenos whenever those are placed on to a burger, something that delivers a deliciously spicy kick with each bite. It is also good to see you still get an inordinate amount of fries with each order. Between two burgers, two “little” fries, and two freestyle drinks (of which I had like four), the total came to £42.90. Not terrible all things considered, and actually the cheapest evening meal of the weekend.
After eating we explored Resorts World a little bit longer, reuniting with Alex and Aaron to finish off our exploration with a short chat as we walked back to our respective hotels before my partner and I retreated to our hotel room to relax for the evening.
This version of events does not include the several people we ran into as we explored around and chatted to about VTubers and life, including one guy who I now know to be @Nostroscythe on Twitter giving us a great conversation with a beautiful message of “Live Hard, Love Hard”. I do not think we gave you our names properly dude, but you left an impact on myself and my partner.
(also I am like 90% convinced Obkatiekat was in the mix of that group as well and I only twigged that upon seeing a picture of them later, inches away from greatness without even realising)
The rest of the evening was uneventful, with me casting my phone to the hotel TV to watch Hololive VODs and clips whilst my partner went out to meet other HUKEC people at Karaage in Resorts World – thanks for taking care of him everyone.
So yeah, Day -1 of VExpo was eventful as hell and we have not even hit the main meat of the event and I have already written close to 1300 words this is going to be a long-ass writeup.
With that, we move into:
Friday, Dawn of Day 0
Friday came around, and after much needed warm showers & shaves, we headed out to the Wetherspoons in the piazza where we linked up with people from HUKEC having breakfast, I ordered a simple sausage butty which I added mustard to, though this was the most substantial breakfast I ate all weekend.
We talked about all manner of different things, our oshi, card games of all descriptions, F1, told my cosplay horror story once more – that last one did lead to a wonderful-if-maybe-unintentional compliment from a guy named Wes (@RacingGuyRyS on Twitter) when I double-checked with people that they knew what Shiori Novella looks like.
“Yeah she kind of dresses like you but different”
It was so off-the-cuff but so sweet, thank you dude for hanging with me and my partner.
After sitting and chatting for a bit we went back to the hotel to rest before going out to explore once more, eventually being merged into a large blob of other congoers going towards badge pickup, where I met a fellow Takodachi who complimented my Ina bag… before raising the stakes by showing me both his Takodachi tattoo and his Ina Ita Flag. I am so sorry I never got your name properly friend, but you were one of the (many) highlights of my weekend.
We arrived at badge pickup early, and waited around for a short bit for the queue to open, during which we met a wonderful Coco cosplayer (who I am really sorry I did not get your name) who I took a photo with and told my cosplay horror story, starting a wonderful trend over the weekend that whenever I showed a cosplayer the pictures, they went through the five stages of grief in rapid succession.
Badge pickup was also where we made another friend for the weekend, MurasakiTheGreat (same name on Twitch), due to the blahaj sticking out of their bag. They ended up becoming a recurring fixture in our weekend and were great company for me during the opening concert.
However, once badge pickup started, that is where the dreaded scuff started to creep in.
For the queue myself, Murasaki, and my partner were in for general entry, it moved pretty smoothly, and we ended up getting our badges & tickets relatively smoothly within half an hour… this was not the case for the Akasupa line, who were experiencing two hour waits as standard, due to scanner issues requiring manual data entry.
On top of this, there was additional scuff in the form of opening concert tickets initially not being given out as part of badge pickup, requiring myself to go back to pick them up from a different queue… where the badge pickup queue itself was massive due to the scanner issue.
Technical difficulties are a given, and as a QA I can relate to equipment failure, but communication on this issue could definitely be improved, especially as poor Mimi’s voice was definitely difficult to hear over the commotion sometimes. I am not sure if the NEC staff would have allowed a megaphone, but the addition of one would definitely have helped crowd control to a degree.
And on top of all this, there was additional scuff when it came about that they had run out of physical opening concert tickets to give to attendees, leading to them writing on “O.C.” on badges. This is definitely something I think needs to be fixed for next year, it is a nice touch to give out physical tickets as a souvenir but requiring the physical ticket for entry when it should also be tied to the badge I feel caused a fair bit of friction.
Anyway, doing a photo dump of all my badge related photos before we get into talking about the opening concert.
And can’t forget Pizza Express dinner even though I almost did:
Once 8pm came around, we were allowed into the opening concert and took our seats, my company for the evening being my new friend Murasaki. And for all the issues I personally had with badge pickup and all the issues I saw with Akasupas… this was an amazing opening show, and for someone who has been craving a return to live music, I could not have asked for a better show that relates to my interest.
(concert photos I took are definitely scuffed, and it does not seem like there is a VOD available on their channel, so hopefully I can recount the story well enough)
It started off with a wotagei performance by Aniwaza Team, who opened with Connect the World by HololiveEN… a damn surefire way to get my hype up for certain as I was singing along to every word and having the time of my life. Wotagei performances have definitely interested me, and this team being the opening act was a great introduction – the energy was fantastic.
After that, we had a full setlist from Phoebe Chan, the 2.5D idol, who did a frankly inspired performance of her “splitting” between a 2D model and her… 3D(?) person with them singing together for a good few songs. We actually talked to her about this performance at her meet & greet and she said it took a lot of rehearsal.
In general her performance was extremely meaningful to me, speaking a lot to the journey I have been on myself this year, and I am not ashamed to admit I nearly cried during some of the songs. It was absolutely fantastic, and I am so glad this show introduced me to Phoebe Chan.
I have to give a shout out to her performance of Renai Circulation though, it was an absolutely fantastic rendition of a well-known song within nerd communities as a whole but including both Space Jam and All Star in the middle of it was absolutely hilarious, catching me off guard and putting the biggest dumbest smile on my face.
Following Phoebe, we had a VTuber named Hiwamari on stage, performing a short setlist of three songs including one entirely in French which I think she said was from Genshin Impact around Fontaine? I will admit now to not really taking notes during the performance, only taking photos of talents before going back to enjoying the music.
Not much to say about her, but I definitely enjoyed the performance even if I was not massively following what was going on.
Up next, we had two performers from Phase Connect: Jelly Hoshiumi and Komachi Panko. I honestly cannot remember what they sang but I still remember enjoying it. I think that is the true joy of the opening concert for me and what I missed a lot about live music, because I used to find a lot of cool bands through support acts back in the day, and even if I do not fully know who people are, I will still vibe and sing along to my best ability.
After the Phase Connect people, we had Miori Celesta on stage, doing a short but sweet setlist of bardcore-inspired songs, which included a beautiful version of Scarborough Fair which she asked people to check out on Youtube, so I will include the link to that video as well.
Following her, there was a performance from three members of V4Mirai: Kou Mariya, REM Kanashibari, and someone who might be on her way to becoming a favourite of mine purely on aesthetics alone, Dr.NOVA(e). Unfortunately I also cannot fully remember what each individual member sang, but I do remember what the three of them sang together at the end…
…I do not recall the last time I sang along to Baby One More Time by Britney Spears but goddamnit if singing along to that with three beautiful VTubers performing it on stage was not one of the main highlights of my weekend. I will definitely be trying to find some time to see what the good doctor is up to in the future.
Moving on, after that we had Bonnie Barkswell and Reina Ronronea from Globie, with one song from Bonnie specifically staying in my mind because it was “Ahoy!!” by Houshou Marine, one of my all time favourite HoloJP originals and my first time ever doing the call & response section with a live crowd.
Holy crap what an experience. It felt so fucking cool to be cheering along with a song I have known for so long with a crowd cheering with me.
And finally, we have the final act, and the performer I was most looking forward to seeing perform given she had promised non-stop dad rock: the independent and resilient Matara Kan.
Even outside of my admiration for the giant cockroach, her setlist aligned perfectly with a good deal of my own musical taste. Green Day, Blink-182, Nickleback, My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park – she was going through all the hits of classic Guitar Hero and despite the butterflies in her stomach, I loved every minute of her performance and sang along with everything I knew.
Plus it was really sweet of her to dedicate her final song to her favourite, now-graduated, VTuber. I am sure wherever Nina Kosaka is now she would have loved that performance.
And with that, the opening concert came to a close. My arms were dead, my legs were dead, but surprisingly my voice was still holding up. Upon returning to the hotel and consuming a CBD gummy, it apparently took all of five minutes for me to go to sleep, giving me plenty of rest for…
Saturday: The Main Event
We woke up relatively early for a Saturday and started to get ready. Unrelated to anything in the convention, god it feels nice to not have to worry about hot water running out with a hotel shower so I could take extremely long showers compared to what I do at home.
I am actually very proud of my Saturday fit in all honesty, the stompers were a vibe as always, and the fact I was able to hook some of my plushies on small chains onto the corset D-rings of my dress let me represent some of my favourites without cosplaying – plus this outfit definitely has the vibes of Shiori’s detective outfit which is great.
My partner and I walked over to the convention to get let in shortly after we arrived, before instantly splitting up. He wanted to explore around, and I wanted to hit Artist Alley where I almost instantly bought two A4 prints from an artist called SnipSnip Studio… it kind of helped they were cosplaying Shiori so I was able to tell them my story, thanks for listening!
But then I instantly got distracted as I had noticed a Helldiver cosplay, and I knew I wanted to get a photo… not before engaging in a silly bit of roleplay though, because as soon as I got his attention I gave him the casual salute, and he reciprocated near instantly. I am so sorry I did not get your name, but thanks for taking a photo with me.
After leaving artist alley there was the Baka Itasha display with three gorgeous cars on display, one representing IRyS of HoloEN, one representing Dokibird of Independent, and the one I took… basically all of my photos of, representing Ninomae Ina’nis of HoloEN. I definitely regret not getting proper photos taken of all of them, and not taking photos of me with them.
I also took in the scale of the event after these photos. It has been an extremely long time since I have done anything like that, and the fact I was able to even stand in the hall after the shit year I have had made me so extremely happy… if a touch overwhelmed at times… okay I was a touch overwhelmed for the entire event but I still made the most of it!
Reunited with my partner near the entrance, I encountered someone I had in my mind that I wanted to meet: a cosplayer called Julibee I follow on Twitter. I told her my cosplay story and watched her process what I had just showed her along with the price I had paid before talking about if she knew any seamstress and finishing things off with a photo. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me, you looked amazing in your Marine cosplay and I hope we get to meet again some day.
My partner and I went for a wander afterwards, only to run into Merryweather walking around in his suit and fursuit head. I imagined it would be quite sweltering for him but as we were talking he was actively needing to air out the head and put a fan next to his mouth to help keep him cool. I did not get to say as much as I wanted to say to him, especially as a fellow writer, but thank you for taking a photo with me. I hope to see you again soon.
We continued to wander around taking in the sights and sound of the convention until I noticed a pair of cosplayers I had also wanted to say hi to, CloverClub and Nocte. I was admittedly a little awkward talking to them cause Clover did ask me to repeat myself when I was recounting my cosplay story, but thank you both for taking a photo with me. You looked amazing and, like with so many other cosplayers I took photos with, I hope to see you again some day.
After this, we decided to kill time until one of the few things my partner wanted to do came up, which was Phoebe Chan doing her meet & greet to the side of the main meeting space. We actually arrived as her and her manager Steiner were setting up her table, so we chatted briefly as that went on where I got to compliment her set. My partner bought one of her penlights whilst I bought her album and got it signed.
Especially with what you wrote Phoebe, I want to meet you again. It was an amazing time getting to talk to you and the words you said to my partner were inspiring.
With that wrapped up, we decided to return to the hotel for a short bit where any reasonable person would have chosen to have a proper lunch in that moment especially considering there was the HUKEC meetup and my meet & greet with Matara coming up in the afternoon, but nope, Huel and a few doritos it was… next time definitely need to bring some proper snacks.
We rested for around three-quarters of an hour before heading back out towards the HUKEC meetup just outside the atrium, and… there is so much to talk about here so I will try my best to keep it concise holy shit I am writing so much I need to go on convention trips more often.
Across the near hour I was at the meetup for, I:
- Talked to a bunch of new people I had never properly met before, including the Supreme Leader Boyfriend John
- Took part in the HUKEC group photo
- Gave a try at the HUKEC beanbag toss
- Wrote a message for the HUKEC chain (I wish I got a picture of what I wrote, but I will explain it after)
- Took photos with a bunch of cool cosplayers who I only got the name of one of
- Got given a bunch of Hololive Card Game cards by a guy called Archie thank you so much again dude that was fucking insane and they will be put to good use
I will admit there was a time I was on the sidelines and I came close to crying, not from sadness or feeling overwhelmed (much), but just from sheer… positivity and inclusiveness, which got reflected in the message I wrote for the chain.
“Thank you for making my world less lonely – Rosa”
In general, I think those words sum up how the VTubing world as a whole makes me feel, especially with post-VExpo emotions. It was so amazing to meet so many independent VTubers along with fans of corpo VTubers, and I felt like I belonged regardless of who I was.
Anyway, HUKEC photo dump incoming. The Nakiri Ayame cosplayer is called Kat, but I did not get the names of the Gigi, Nimi, or Dr Fubuki cosplayers – my apologies to all.
My partner was pretty exhausted afterwards, so we did one more quick whip around the convention hall before I was going to walk him home. As we did so, we saw someone who I now know is called The Memestar queueing for a meet & greet carrying a 3D printed replica of the WunderWaffe from Call of Duty: World At War.
So we obviously had to get photos of him, and he very graciously let my partner who was leading the conversation hold it too. Very lovely to talk to you dude, especially as you were queueing at the time.
We walked back to the hotel, where I left my partner to rest whilst I returned for my meet & greet with Matara.
Now.
ANY REASONABLE PERSON would have changed out of the big heavy stompers she had been wearing for seven hours at this point and change into more comfortable shoes, especially as she was aware of the blisters forming on the back of her feet, but nope, I walked back to the hall in the stompers and queued for nearly two hours in them as well.
Thankfully I did have a nice distraction whilst queueing in the form of brilliant conversation with someone called ShizukaSilent and someone else who I once again did not get the name of, but thank you both for talking with me in the queue, and extra thanks to Shizuka for letting me take a 3D printed desk buddy mascot.
The queue came and went, and soon I was getting ready to meet Matara. I had in my mind what I was going to ask and talk about: considering her opening concert set was essentially a greatest hits of Guitar Hero, I wanted to ask her about if she considered adding Dragonforce into the mix.
That said, all composure went straight out the window the moment I walked in to the booth and the first words out of her mouth were:
“Ooo, you’re stylish”.
And followed up with:
“Rosa, oh that’s a beautiful name”.
I became a spluttering mess after that point, this beautiful and resilient person who I had just spent two hours queueing for complimented me incredibly sincerely and whilst I did get my question out and we chatted about Guitar Hero, I was so overwhelmed with happiness of getting to talk to her and say how inspiring she was to me.
I am holding a plushie up cause I got a little self-conscious about my smile by this point in the weekend, but I hope my cheeks show that I am absolutely over the moon right now. After finishing up I went to get my pen plotter gift as part of this meet, and was incredibly surprised with how the system worked… that said, there was a fair bit of scuff surrounding that too, but I will not dwell on it here because of the positive vibes.
By the way, your handwriting is beautiful Matara, and I am so happy to have this as a memory of our meeting.
Now, it was close to 8pm by the time I had finished my meet & greet and got my pen plotter gift, I had been in stompers for close to nine hours, and I was in abject agony. This presented a small problem, as I had booked a ticket to go see Idol Anarchy, the premium rock concert as part of the convention.
But I was tired, hungry, and in a lot of pain, so as we were leaving I asked a staff member if it was possible to give away my ticket. They came back and said it was, we just had to find someone…
…and there was a convenient Murasaki by the entrance who was happy to accept the ticket. Again, it was great meeting you friendo, and I hope you enjoyed the concert.
Free of responsibility and able to take the evening a bit more easy, my partner and I went to TGIFridays for a fantastic meal to finish off the day, an experience made even better with the energy of our waiter Dan that night. An absolute delight to be around which made the first solid food I hate eaten in almost eleven hours taste so much better.
We walk back to the hotel, and get into the lift with two other people from the convention. We strike up a conversation, and I think I am just chatting with two other attendees so I start talking about my meet with Matara.
And then I get hit with a bombshell.
“I’m Dokibird’s manager”
You’re fucking who?!
I might not have been able to win tickets for Doki’s meet & greet, but honestly, I think I got the next best thing in getting to meet Doki’s manager. We did get a photo together and whilst he did say that Doki technically doxxed him that day, I am not going to post it here. It is a little scuffed and I kind of want to keep this fun little memory to myself.
He did give me his card though, and this is a perfect physical reminder of that beautiful, random meeting after a long exhausting convention day.
Did not take long for me to get back to sleep, which leads us into…
Sunday Sunday Sunday
Sunday was a much calmer day, if by force because of how much physical pain I was in due to my own stupidity being in stomper boots for nine hours, and I had two meet & greets booked almost back to back with Elia Stellaria and Rin Penrose. Did not get a proper fit picture this day but it was a simple affair of representing two of my HoloJP oshi with a Shirakami Fubuki t-shirt and Shishiro Botan hoodie.
Unrelated, there was also a test of the UK emergency alert system happening at 3pm the same day, and the running joke throughout the day was calling it the “tea alarm”. Thankfully I was not a meet & greet by the time the alarm went off, but it was fun to discuss it whilst in the queue.
My partner went to a panel talking about the initial VTuber boom of 2020, whilst I was taking things a bit easier just wandering around both the regular and 18+ artist alley before finding a quiet spot to rest outside the convention… which did mean missing the absolutely hilarity of Merryweather coming over the tannoy which was apparently broadcast to every security personnel in the NEC.
It was so fucking funny to see if hindsight, especially with him coming on a second time to say he was not allowed to swear, so I am very glad it is immortalised on Twitter.
Once it came close to my meet & greet times, I decided to queue for Elia first and then loop round to Rin, which was definitely the right decision as I was able to double stack them near perfectly. I do have some issues with how the queue system was handled once again, but I will keep it to an ending scuff recap.
I will admit to only being a recent fan of Elia, mainly loving her aesthetic leading into researching her, and applying for her meet & greet on the off chance I got it… and I did, and it was actually one of the sweetest experiences I had over the weekend.
The moment I walked in she highlighted the fact I was carrying a plushie – a blahaj no less as I wanted to bring one of mine to meet Rin, and I just went with it, holding it up in front of me and waving with its fin. I talked about being a new fan and then led in with my question I wanted to ask her: what is her favourite cozy snack?
She went into full detail of whether we were going sweet or savoury, and it was absolutely adorable seeing her giving me every bit of info, where I eventually settled that I was going to get cookies after the convention as part of my wind-down, leading to the message she wrote on my pen plotter gift.
“You can have all my cookies”.
It is such a personal message, and combined with the fact she gave out little gift bags with her meet as well has cemented me as a firm Elia fan for the future.
I left Elia’s booth and instantly joined the queue for Rin Penrose, unsurprisingly I was not the only person carrying a blahaj with me. That said, it was certainly not seen as a detriment, as the friend to all plushies commented on it instantly as I walked in, saying “I see a shark”, which led nicely into my explaining that I had brought him for a blessing… leading to this wonderful exchange between us.
Me: “His name is Oculus”
Rin: “HIS NAME IS OCULUS!”
Me: “He lives on my work background”
Rin: “HE LIVES ON YOUR WORK BACKGROUND”
And that silly little guy energy carried throughout the entire meet, especially as they talked about rickrolling the Big British Concert audience before laughing maniacally, refuting my claim with “I’m just a little guy”, leading us to debate whether one can be both a little guy and evil before finishing off with a photo. I gave a bow to my prince before leaving to join the pen plotter line.
It took another three-quarters of an hour after queueing for almost two hours to get my final two pen plotters, but with that, my convention weekend was over. I left the hall to go find a quiet place to sit whilst my partner queued up to claim their pen plotter from Limealicious.
I initially did almost go back in to impulse buy some final merch from artist alley, but at a few minutes past five they told me the hall was closed to new entry – which was fully understandable, but it would have been nice to have this advertised on the Discord or Twitter in advance.
Once we had both finished our day, we went back to the hotel and decided: fuck it, we wanted to come home. We checked out of our hotel early and made the trek to the station home, with it only taking just over an hour to get back to comfy beds, familiar territory, and a greasy ass takeaway.
Before I get into discussing what was scuffed in terms of organisation, I want to preface: this was one of the best experiences I had in my life, especially after the year I have had. To hang around with VTuber fans and VTubers, to share my story with people, and to enjoy a wonderful weekend away, I could not have asked for a better time.
And I will be returning next year, as I want to continue being involved with the VTuber community as a whole within the UK and EU, but there are definitely some things I would want to see fixed/adjusted for next year.
Scuff
The main thing I would like to see adjusted for next year is better utilisation of the hall space along with implementing strong crowd control measures for queues across the venue. Initially I was floating the idea of suggesting that VExpo branch out across two halls but I think that would be a little excessive… unless the internal data suggests they could fill two halls in which case I am happy to be wrong.
But in general, I feel the meet & greet space could have been better spread out. Queues got extremely long, winding, and cramped throughout the weekend and having more distinct space for people to queue in would be helpful – this was especially prevalent queueing for Elia’s meet as we were within hugging distance of Vexoria’s meet.
Great for conversation, but it definitely made things feel extremely cramped at points.
Additionally, and it seems there is a lot of discussion in the Discord about this anyway, but the system for retrieving the pen plotter gifts was extremely flawed as it was stacking queues on top of queues, made worse so by the fact that only two pen plotters were running across the weekend. In VExpo’s defense, this is the first year they are running this system, so having the capacity and scale right first time was never going to happen, but if this system returns next year, they either need to massively scale up how many are running at any given time, or as they are discussing right now in the Discord, sending out pen plotters at a later date.
I am also not entirely sure if I want to call this next point “scuff” given it can very much be seen as a skill issue, but the necessity to queue for me – especially on the Sunday – made it hard to enjoy other programming at the convention, and I know I am not entirely alone in that feeling, especially considering some of the main stage panels on Sunday got knock on delayed because of issues over in the meet & greets.
It definitely would be nice to have experienced more of the convention, especially as I was initially very excited to try do the Balatro event on the activity stage but it clashed with both my meet & greet times, definitely some amount of skill issue at play there but still a bit of feedback to give.
If the internal data does show a second hall being viable, having the gaming area being expanded would be quite nice as well, along with having some dedicated events at the convention. With Hololive Card Game taking off in the UK quite well I can foresee a tournament taking place, plus if there were casual commander pods going on for Magic: the Gathering and I… somehow had a calm schedule, I could see myself jamming a game or two in.
TL;DR in case anyone from VExpo is actually reading (in which case holy shit I have made it): logistics and organisation were my main issue, there is only so much that Mimi shouting is able to do especially when technology is failing, communication and crowd control would very much be appreciated to keep things running smoothly next time.
Conclusion
This is the longest thing I have written in years goddamn. VExpo was a hell of a time for me, and that is with missing out on a lot of other small details such as being given business cards by so many indie VTubers who told me what their niche is, and the fun random conversations about video/card games I had every day.
Next year I definitely want to be better. I most definitely want to cosplay next year as well, and not having to deal with getting fucked around with commissions, and I want to push myself to be involved in more of the events as well…
…plus Hololive maybe I do not know maybe you could convince Liz to come along but that is wishful thinking. If VExpo 2026 was just more of 2025 with better organisation then I think I will still have a wonderful time.
Anyway, time to post just a small snapshot of my merch haul from the weekend, there is a lot of other stuff off to the side as well but this is the main bulk of what came from the artists.
Close to seven-thousand words in four hours… I think that is a record for me in terms of writing, and I feel I am still missing a bunch of stuff.
But I feel I should wrap up, if just because finishing off this recap will put a full stop on my weekend and I can start processing the post-con depression because I definitely feel that is going to hit hard.
If you have read all this way, then thank you. This is a long ass piece to read and I do not blame you if you needed to read it in bursts. The Redundancy Review should return to some kind of scheduled normality, and my written journey shall continue for the foreseeable future.
Rosalia Rambles 